


Precarious Treasure

by PaulaMcG



Series: Grimmauld Place [6]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Abusive pure-blood wizards remembered, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Artist Remus Lupin, Bonus Gift, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Christmas 1995, Freddie Mercury's songs, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, January 1996, Kissing, Love, M/M, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Oneiromancy discussed, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, R/S Small Gifts 2019, Rating because of memories of abuse although not explicit, Singing, Sirius Black plays the piano, Walburga Black present although dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21716893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: In January 1996, after the other Christmas guests have left, Sirius can be dragged out of his nightmares only by Remus’s voice, or perhaps by his touch, too.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Grimmauld Place [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740949
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17
Collections: RS Small Gifts 2019





	Precarious Treasure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [montparnasse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/montparnasse/gifts).



> Thank you again, my brilliant beta Liseuse. Happy continuation of small gift season, Eve! I dare hope my Remus not dwelling on oneiromancy and his take on the topic of dreams won’t disappoint too much, since you mentioned music among your likes.

This couch is as hard, as unrelenting as when… What am I doing here now? I must be crazy.

But I remain supine, staring at the ceiling. At least I’m not looking around, not at the poison-coloured drapes.

It’s been a struggle to breathe in this room as long as I can remember. At sixteen, when I could no longer…

Something must have gone wrong to bring me here again. Everything. And I can think back exactly until the first of the worst moments, and my mind stays there. Now that I’m inclined to torturing myself, since I hate this useless wreck, this… coward – that’s what they call me – why not dwell on that early memory?

No need to turn my head towards the windows. Closing my eyes, I get right there, behind the heavy fabric. There, pressed against the frozen pane, I’m a child of nine, I’m shrinking away from the panting, the moist skin, the swelling…

A soothing whisper of notes reaches me. Faltering fingers travel boldly on the dusty keys of the piano. Hardly a melody.

Now singing. “Am I dreaming?” It’s his voice, the resilient good memory.

This is how he drags me these days from the depth of what the Dementors in that hell of a place almost managed to turn into my permanent state. Back then, just a fresh and worse memory – that the rat had killed my true brother and our queen of the Marauders – saved something of the adult wizard’s mind.

He, another Marauder, a werewolf – he didn’t disappear completely in there either. I’ve always been able to remember how he was hurting, bleeding, twisting in agony, suffering from bigotry, trying to hide his condition and his hunger. And how, due to the fears I’d learnt right here, I was unable to give him all he needed. Through the years in there, if I saw his face in my mind, it was mauled like after the night when I betrayed him to Snivellus and the wolf hurt himself more badly than ever.

Now his voice makes my head turn just when he swirls around on the piano bench, and I see that face in the cold green light of the room. The cheeks are less hollow than last winter or at the beginning of the summer, but the lines of age are drawn like scars or shadows of the wounds I caused him to inflict on himself.

Since last summer, two years after the emaciated dog slipped out through the bars to hunt the rat, and a year after I almost succeeded but was stopped from killing… Yes, there’s some order left in my head. I won’t forget the number of years. Twelve years in Azkaban, and two and a half out, and only for the last six months have I been trying to construct more than a facade of sanity.

Sometimes I’ve allowed him to help. Tried to listen to him, even talk to him.

“Should I remember you used to sing that song?” I ask.

It was hard to get used to him in the desert of his crummy, almost unfurnished room, where I was ordered to hide. In the desert of my mind, when he yearned to touch me and insisted that I remember how I used to want him close to me. It’s sometimes been harder here, where I’m imprisoned again and the empty space of my mind is threatened to turn into this cruelest room.

I’m more sure I want him when he’s away.

It was somehow a relief that I didn’t get to spend Christmas alone with him. He’d been so much looking forward to it. He’d sent an owl to tell me his mission would be over well in time, and got carried away describing the way I used to decorate my tree, with a moon at the top.

Seeing me as gloomy as the house disappointed him, of course. He came to me just after I’d found an old charcoal drawing, a group portrait he’d made of us four, the rat included. I couldn’t stand looking at it. His first attempt at real, moving art. Seeing that twitch of a smile I once gave to him made me sure I’ll never properly remember more. And I hurt him by telling him never to make a picture of me again.

It’s hard to believe anyone can truly remember anything that doesn’t hurt.

“No,” he says, bending towards me, with elbows on his knees. “This is a new song, one we can learn.”

I force myself to sit up. I succeed, because I’m occupied by the memory of how this malicious, uncompromising couch stiffens my whole body, my neck to the position for me to face who’s in front of me.

He sings on softly. “There’s a kind of magic in the air.”

In the air between us, mother’s standing straight as a ramrod, so tall that my gaze falls on her heaving chest and on the wand she’s twisting in her hands.

The singing voice goes on, the only voice that can make me suspect that not all laughter is evil, “What a truly magnificent view…”

I have to snort, and then I manage a chortle, as the witch decides to lower her wand this time and glides towards the drapes, with the trail of her silvery robes wreathing like a serpent behind her.

“A breathtaking scene/ With the dreams of the world/ In the palm of your hand.” He reaches out his hand, the left, more sensitive hand, the one he uses for his painting and for the humble tricks he’s learnt of poor witches’ and wizards’ and fey creatures’ magic.

The flicker of flame on his palm is pale blue, sad.

“You know, there were years when I did not dream,” he starts. “In 1983…”

I can’t have such a conversation. “I had a dream last night. Let’s look it up and find out what it means.”

The couch pushes me to my feet, and the momentum for escape takes me almost towards him, not quite, but to a bookshelf near the piano. I remember the spot correctly, because this is where Lucius pinned me when taking turns with Rabastan and Rodolphus. Here’s the gold-embossed spine I kept staring at back then. _Artemidori Daldiani Onirocritikon_.

When I’ve shoved the heavy book to his hands, he confirms what I remember learning onirocritikon or oneirocritica meant, “ _The Interpretation of Dreams_.” And he goes on, babbling, “This is the 1963 definitive edition of the Greek text, by Roger Pack. When I was a student in Paris, in 1984 and 85, I saw the most recent French translation, _Clef des Songes_ by A. J. Festugière. It was from the mid-seventies, I think.”

“The case of one's mother is both complex and manifold,” I hear myself recite in Rodolphus’s voice. “The manner of the embraces and the various positions of the bodies indicate…”

“Seriously, have you dreamt about her?” He forgets I can’t bear to be asked any questions.

I hope it was only a nightmare, not a memory. Is there a difference?

I’m leaning my back against the bookshelf, with my arms folded for protection against caresses. I need a drink.

I’ve been drinking less, and trying my best not to escape to being a dog since he arrived. Soon after, all those people filled the house, the Weasleys, who needed me as a good host, and James’s son, too. I couldn’t be expected to let anyone share my bed then.

Perhaps if I’d drunk enough to get pissed, we’d have had more moments like the one on that first night, after the argument about pictures. Wrestling under the canopy once erected to make the room worthy of a young heir. The disowned and deranged descendant of dark wizards trying to still conceal the damage in his body, with only his feet bare. And the chronicler of enviable years of drifting and destitution, generously exposing the marks of hard times and wearing only woollen socks, two pairs, like an old hag. With difficulty taking off one pair and forcing them on me, then guiding me to glide on slippery feet across the floor, to dance in his arms, just as back when I hated anyone seeing us so intimate. That moment allowed me a glimpse of even the otherwise lost, joyful day of a wedding, of my brother Prongs and his bride twirling next to us. 

That moment must be stretched to cover the desert… No, this mind’s not empty, of course not. It’s a wilderness inhabited by beasts. When I was on the run, they were kept at bay by the struggle for the body to be fed and to stay alive, and by remaining a proper stray, the dog. Now more and more of the monsters are awakening.

These new images of his smiles, his eyes, his hands, his naked body in blissful rest, relaxing, warming up under my duvet, and his chest with its familiar scars, pressed against mine, which I’ve covered with his shabbiest old sweatshirt – these treasures must be spread to shelter me.

As he’s holding the book, I want to keep staring at the smooth skin of his wrists. I’d like to be proud of the absence of any marks of gnawing.

But because of all those Christmas guests still here at the full moon, even until the second day after, we couldn’t covertly Apparate to our hideout in Yorkshire. And in the cellar he could have managed as well with any ordinary dog or other animal as a calming companion. On the day after he slept, so as to have the strength to accompany Harry and the others to school. And I tried to be useful, a proper godfather, only to end up getting humiliated by Snivellus in front of the boy.

Clenching my fists, I move my gaze to the chapped, ruddy spots on his knuckles. They look familiar from an older image, an image of a younger man’s hands. A memory that is not fully happy and therefore is still mine. Cold hands which I dare not touch, in fear that we’re being watched by anyone who’d think that I’m…

Now his soothing voice tempts me to venture to listen to the words it’s forming, instead of guarding my precarious treasure of images. I close my eyes. 

“If you did, I hope you can forget such a dream,” he says. “I don’t believe there’s any true magic in oneiromancy.”

That’s how he’s always been as far as I can remember. Unwilling to face his nightmares. Yes, I remember tracing them on his sleeping face, suddenly distorted, and hearing him scream in agony and not only while transforming. Waking him up and demanding him to tell me, and getting frustrated when he’s refused, insisted on forgetting the nightmare and the memory it tried to bring back.

I used to imagine it instead, conjuring alternative scenes of the five-year-old savaged by a monster. They are all still vivid, more real for my mind than any moments of solace I’ve lost. I’m watching the claws tear his chest, and the jaws snap closed on his shoulder.

His voice makes my lids flutter open. I can see that he’s safe – peculiarly enough, not threatened by this house, just by me, his concern for me.

He stands up, closing the book. “Perhaps it helps if we talk about the other kind of dreaming. The kind I was singing and talking about.”

“You can sing,” I grunt, envious, perhaps, but also wishing he’d save himself.

He gives me such a deliciously lopsided grin that I hasten to add it to my collection of images before he’s said, “So can you. At Christmas I was thrilled to listen to your ‘God rest ye merry…’”

“Hippogriffs,” I sing.

“You remembered the song from…”

From when I first arrived in Godric’s Hollow. That was not a fully happy memory. Not for him either, as I can see in the way he bites his lip.

“You started learning to sing around that time, in our fifth year,” he begins to inform me. “Or it could be called our first year – the year when you and I became…”

That’s lost. That must have made me fully happy.

But I remember later Pete… the rat warning us that it was illegal, also unnatural, reminding me that I didn’t want to be a bugger like those… I wouldn’t have forgotten it, so Uncle Alphard can’t have been as bad, although I remember resenting him, hating the thought of owning his house so much that I had to sell it so as to buy a flat to share with my true brother, who was as good as engaged. And for years ignoring the other Marauder’s need when he couldn’t afford to rent a decent room.

I’ve learnt to distract myself by asking something I’m not interested in. “What’s that new song?”

“A Winter’s Tale, written by Freddie Mercury.” He’s now stepping closer to me. “The same who – twenty years ago – wrote…”

“Pick a song that’s not happy, so perhaps I know it.” I shift aside so as to let him return the book to its shelf without touching me. 

“I know a good one! Flick of the Wrist.” And he sings with such a bitter tone in his voice and such an intense gaze that he startles me, as he must have done back then. “Prostitute yourself he says/ Castrate your human pride/ Sacrifice your leisure days/ Let me squeeze you till you’ve dried!”

Yes. I know it. “Flick of the wrist and you’re dead baby/ Blow him a kiss and you’re mad…” I’m croaking, I’m aware, although in my mind I can hear the melody correctly, just as I might still be able to pick it on the piano, thanks to unforgettably awful music lessons with mother.

Realising his mistake, he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, biting his lip again. “Maybe not a good one. Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

I understand. Back then, out of Hogwarts after realising that he had been used by Dumbledore and had no prospects beyond remaining the object of experiment on how someone like him managed higher studies, he felt the song was about him, and it could still be about how he’s treated in the Order. We couldn’t imagine it would be about me again one day.

I remember his anger and frustration, which he let out only through music. And my petty feelings. My discomfort in the concert crowd. My jealousy. Almost disgust when I realised that he could easily be attracted to other men, aroused by this glam star’s mesmerising voice and lithe body.

“No matter,” I say. “All right, I remember that queen. You’re still enchanted by him.”

He’s standing too close to me. His face is soft now, blurred in the gloom.

“He died in 1991. This new, beautiful song is the last one he wrote and recorded. It was released a couple of months ago, and I just heard it at Kingsley’s when I went there to discuss the next mission.”

Is he making sure I won’t forget this evening? All this about a new song is now turning into a far from happy moment, one that I’ll keep even if I meet Dementors again, unless, of course, one of them kisses me and I get rid of it all.

Why do we talk about that singer? Should it comfort me that he’s at least not doing better than I am? Perhaps he is. His songs are still there to captivate my Moony, and maybe the idol is even more fascinating when dead.

My Moony. That was the name in my mind, not only at fully happy, completely lost moments. 

“That Freddie queen’s dead.” I’ve tried to say it matter-of-factly, but I know I’m soon resorting to bitterness in an exceptional inane question – one I’d like to get answered. “Am I not dead enough for your liking?”

He lifts his left hand, with the palm down this time, close to his face. I’m guessing he’s doing this so as to keep the hand in my full view and not to startle me when he proceeds to touch me. But he first brushes the chapped knuckles with his lips. I do remember seeing this before, an unconscious habitual behaviour of his.

And feeling the jolt when he takes my right hand. I glance around, just as I used to, checking if there’s anyone to see what we’re doing.

Who’s there? The wizards, buggers, young and old, have all grown older, moved on. The witch turns her head and stares at us across the room. Yes, let her look.

She’s the one trapped now, forced to watch what she’s hated about her son. I’m a bold Gryffindor, and just like twenty years ago, I dare do this. She can’t escape seeing it, because she’s dead.

“She’s dead.” I’ve said it aloud.

My Moony’s guided me the few steps to the piano, and he places my fingers on the keys. “Yes. And you’re alive. We’re alive enough for love. And we can sing and dream.”

Wrapping his right arm around my shoulders he presses me down to sit on the piano bench beside him. This close, as if we were one, it’s been easier for me to choose to come on the full moon nights and the mornings after, when I know he needs it. And now I remember how it was like this also in what he’s just called our first year, and even after. It used to be hard work to unlearn the fear of touch. In this room I know why, better than I did when I had run away and decided to forget.

Back right here where I’m haunted by the living memories, perhaps with his help I can undo what was done to me, and replace it with something new. But he interrupts my transient hopeful thought.

“It’s me,” he whispers in my ear, with patient tenderness, “your Moony. You’ve re-learnt to touch me when I need it most, and you need me to touch you. I know you do want to be close to me now. You don’t have to remember that you used to want it.” 

“How do you know what I want!” I snap, and it’s not a question.

Startled, he squeezes my shoulder, but loosens his grip at once. In the tension of his body against mine, I feel an impulse to force a kiss or something – perhaps to prove that I’ll be aroused to responding to it. 

But he lets out a frustrated sigh. “Perhaps it’s turning out too hard for me. I’m no saint. My patience is not endless. I tamed the stray once, and I’ve wanted to do it again. But I can love you only if you let me.”

Suddenly scared that he can’t, I realise that he needs my help so as to love what’s left of me. And he needs someone, not only at full moon.

“All right. I let you… teach me the song.”

He tilts his head against my neck in the way he does when waiting for the moonrise. “I hardly know myself how to sing it yet.”

His humming vibrates through our skins and ties us together. The warm fingers on mine become lighter, and then move to my thigh, leaving my hand free to search for the right keys.

The singing voice close to my ear replaces the humming only in fragments of lyrics, “There’s a silky moon … There’s a kind of magic in the air/ What a truly magnificent view/ A breathtaking scene/ With the dreams of the world/ In the palm of your hand/ A cosy fireside chat … The hope of the man … Like a landscape painting … Am I dreaming?”

I’m playing with my right hand only, and not well at all. The other hand’s fingers have entwined with his and are rubbing his palm against my thigh in the slow rhythm of the music. What he’s doing can rescue me from the nightmares of the past, as it changes what this piano and this room mean to me.

Now he’s hushed. As I turn my head to look at him questioningly, our mouths touch.

“There’s another line I’ve learnt but left out by mistake,” he says against my lips, and he sings, “It’s all so beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” I say with a chortle. “But we sound awful. I remember we used to sing in an awful disharmony, and our friends begged us to stop.”

Most memories, most moments are not fully awful or fully happy. There are old and new treasures in my reach.

I catch his laughter inside my kiss.

And while the play of our tongues lasts for a long time, I remember how his very first kisses on my mouth scared me, because I thought I wouldn’t be free to breathe. Now he’s teaching me again that this can make me feel free and alive.

When I finally separate my lips from his, he smiles, and my eyes caress the lines around his.

“We can learn the end, too – the happy end.” And he sings, “It’s bliss.”


End file.
